What You Should Know About
Ozone
By Szymon Poręba from Poland
O3zone is an allotropic form of
O2xygen
• Ozone (O3 ) trioxygen, is a triatomic molecule,
consisting of three oxygen atoms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ozone-CRC-MW-3D-vdW.png
Properties
• Pale blue gas, it smells like air after a thunderstorm or
chlorine from a swimming pool (density 2.144 g/L)
• slightly soluble in water and much more soluble in
inert non-polar solvents such as CCl4 or fluorocarbons,
where it forms blue solution
• 112 °C, it condenses to form dark blue liquid
• It is dangerous to allow the liquid to warm to its boiling
point, because both concentrated gaseous ozone and
liquid ozone can detonate.
• At temperatures below –193 °C, it forms violet-black
solid
Properties continued
• Most people can detect about 0.01 μmol/mol
of ozone in the air where it has a very specific
sharp odor resembling chlorine bleach.
Exposure of 0.1 to 1 μmol/mol produces
headaches, burning eyes, and irritation to the
respiratory passages. Even low concentration
of ozone in the air are very destructive to
organic materials such as latex, plastics, and
animal lung tissue.
Health effects
Air pollution
• Ozone can harm lung
functions and irritate the
respiratory system
• It can cause asthma, heart
attack or bronchitis.
• In high concentration,
ozone may cause death
because of lungs edema.
Why ozone is so dangerous ?
• Ozone reacts with biological
membranes in our bodies, it
produces free radicals such
as single atom of Oxide
• [O] reacts with proteins
which build human tissues
and causes serious damage
to them
Structure of molecule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ozone-CRC-MW-3D-balls.png
Structure Continued
• Ozone molecule is similar to water molecule
• The central atom is sp2 hybrized
• Dipole moment – 0.53 D – so it is rather weak
polarity
• Angle between bonds - 116.8O
• Chemical bond length – 1.278 A
Ozone can trap UV
• It seems that molecules are in permament
move
• Bonds around atoms can oscillate
• They can rotate, stretch or even twist
Ozone can trap UV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scissoring.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Symmetrical_stretching.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Asymmetrical_stretching.gif
How to produce ozone in a chemical
reaction
• If you mix some crystals of potasium
permanganate with a few drops of sulfuric acid you
will get ozone gas by decoposion reaction of
manganese heptoxide
• 2 KMnO4 + 2 H2SO4 → Mn2O7 + H2O + 2 KHSO4
• Mn2O7  MnO2 + O3
Sources:
http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:Mangan
ese-heptoxide-3Dballs.png&filetimestamp=20070109090319